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Intracranial aneurysms at MR angiography: effect of computer-aided diagnosis on radiologists' detection performance
Toshinori Hirai1, Yukunori Korogi, Hidetaka Arimura
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1 Honjo, Kumamoto 860-8556, Japan.
Purpose:
To retrospectively evaluate the effect of computer-aided detection (CAD) on radiologists' performance in detection of intracranial aneurysms with magnetic resonance (MR) angiography.
Materials And Methods:
The institutional review board approved this study and did not require patient informed consent. Fifty maximum intensity projection MR angiograms in 50 patients were used for observer performance study. The group included 22 patients (age range, 43-86 years; mean, 60.2 years; 6 men and 16 women) with intracranial aneurysms and 28 patients (age range, 32-80 years; mean, 58.8 years; 10 men and 18 women) without aneurysms. The MR angiograms were obtained with three-dimensional time-of-flight 1.5-T MR imaging. Fifteen radiologists, including eight neuroradiologists and seven general radiologists, participated in the observer performance test. They interpreted the angiograms first without and then with the aid of the computer output by using an automated computerized scheme. The observers' performance without and with the computer output was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic analysis.
Results:
For all 15 observers, average area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (A(z)) value for detection of aneurysms was increased significantly from 0.931 to 0.983 (P = .001) when they used the computer output. A(z) values for general radiologists and neuroradiologists increased from 0.894 to 0.983 (P = .022) and from 0.963 to 0.984 (P = .014), respectively. Improvement in the performance of general radiologists in terms of the A(z) value was much greater than that of neuroradiologists. Performance of general radiologists with CAD (A(z) = 0.983) slightly exceeded that of neuroradiologists without CAD (A(z) = 0.963) (P = .048).
Conclusion:
CAD improved neuroradiologists' and general radiologists' performance for detection of intracranial aneurysms with MR angiography; improvement was greater for general radiologists than it was for neuroradiologists.
Insights
Computer-aided detection (CAD) significantly improved radiologists' ability to detect intracranial aneurysms on MR angiography. This enhancement was more pronounced in general radiologists compared to neuroradiologists.
Area of Science:
- Radiology
- Medical Imaging
- Neuroradiology
Background:
- Intracranial aneurysms pose a significant risk.
- Accurate detection is crucial for timely intervention.
- Magnetic resonance (MR) angiography is a key imaging modality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the impact of computer-aided detection (CAD) on the performance of radiologists in identifying intracranial aneurysms.
- To compare the effectiveness of CAD for both general radiologists and neuroradiologists.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective observer performance study involving 50 MR angiograms (22 with aneurysms, 28 without).
- Fifteen radiologists (8 neuroradiologists, 7 general radiologists) interpreted images with and without CAD.
- Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to assess performance.
Main Results:
- Computer-aided detection (CAD) significantly increased the average area under the ROC curve (A(z)) from 0.931 to 0.983 (P = .001).
- Performance gains were observed in both neuroradiologists and general radiologists.
- General radiologists showed a greater improvement in A(z) values with CAD compared to neuroradiologists.
Conclusions:
- Computer-aided detection (CAD) enhances the detection of intracranial aneurysms on MR angiography for both general and neuroradiologists.
- The performance improvement with CAD was more substantial for general radiologists.
- CAD assisted general radiologists to achieve performance levels comparable to or exceeding those of neuroradiologists without CAD.
